1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to unsolicited commercial electronic messages and more particularly to controlling the receipt of unsolicited instant messages.
2. Description of the Related Art
Historically, the print medium served as the principal mode of unsolicited mass advertising on the part of the direct marketing industry. Typically referred to as “junk mail”, unsolicited print marketing materials could be delivered in bulk to a vast selection of recipients, regardless of whether the recipients requested the marketing materials. With an average response rate of one to two percent, junk mail has been an effective tool in the generation of new sales leads. Nevertheless, recipients of junk mail generally find the practice to be annoying. Additionally, postage for sending junk mail can be expensive for significant “mail drops”. Consequently, the direct marketing industry constantly seeks equally effective, but less expensive modalities for delivering unsolicited marketing materials.
The advent of electronic mail has provided much needed relief for direct marketers as the delivery of electronic mail to a vast number of targeted recipients requires no postage. Moreover, the delivery of unsolicited electronic mail can be an instantaneous exercise and the unsolicited electronic mail can include embedded hyperlinks to product or service information thus facilitating an enhanced response rate for the “mail drop”. Still, as is the case in the realm of print media, unsolicited electronic mail, referred to commonly as “spam”, remains an annoyance to consumers worldwide. As a result, an entire cottage industry of “spam filters” has arisen whose task solely is the eradication of spam.
Like electronic mail, instant messaging has proven to be fertile ground for the mass marketer. Referred to in the art as “spim”, unsolicited instant messages have proven to be even a greater annoyance than spam. When received in an e-mail server, spam is not noticed by the recipient until the inbox for the e-mail server has been scanned. At worst, a “new message” notification can be activated pending the review of the newly received spam message by the recipient. In the case of instant messaging, however, the impact is immediate.
Specifically, spim when received causes the activation of a viewer which can “pop up” and distract the recipient. Moreover, spim like spam can consume network resources which can drain user productivity. Even workplace issues can arise where spim includes sexually explicit materials which can be viewed by unsuspecting passersby in proximity to the instant messenger client. Importantly, unlike e-mail based spam, instant messaging based spim cannot be merely deleted. Rather, the spim can become part of the record of the instant messaging session.
Spim often can be generated by “bots”—automated logic charged with the task of identifying possible instant messenger recipients and forwarding instant messages to the recipients as if the instant messages originated from an actual instant message user. Often, the list of instant messenger recipients can be generated randomly, or harvested through Internet probing operations. Given the level of automation available to the spim artist, estimates now place spim at epidemic levels in excess of 500 million spims per day.
Several products have attempted to address the spim epidemic. For example, anti-spim filters have been developed to identify keywords in spim in order to quash the receipt of spim messages. Additionally, it is known to block the receipt of an incoming instant message from a particular instant messenger identifier or screen name. Some systems restrict the receipt of instant messages to those which originate from within a specified domain or network. Yet other systems identify instant messenger sources which have added the recipient to a buddy list. Consequently, a “reverse buddy list” can be generated based upon which subsequent messages can be blocked which originate from users in the reverse buddy list. In all cases, however, spim remains a troublesome element of computer communications.